You're still using others' property
Posted: Oct 26th 2003, 9:23 am
Your covers are beautiful work, well designed ... and yet, I have to react to your outrage.
They aren't, in any legal sense, your property. You used others' work without authorization, and if copyrights and trademarks mean anything, they would not allow your including any of these items:
~ Images owned by Bedford Falls, ABC, and professional photographers. The only release for general use of these items involved their use for publicity for the original series.
~ BMG's cover descriptions.
~ The "MSCL" show logo, a trademark of a.k.a productions.
~ Corporate trademarks of BMG and AIX Media.
~ Even the "DVD" logo is a trademark, held by the DVD manufacturers' standards organization in Japan (Digital Versatile Disc, FLLC).
And is this exempted under "fair use"? No, it isn't, from everything I can see in quite plainly stated law. You're using these materials to make a new creation of your own design. The commercial impact is negligible, so a damage claim wouldn't get very far, but it's still infringement -- especially for the text descriptions, used in full, and for the trademarks.
And many such matters have still been litigated, if only to maintain the holders' claims on such property. Especially for trademarks, where no "fair use" exemptions exist.
With all of this being true, what is the point of being so bothered about something that was inevitable, the posting or offering of such materials elsewhere? You have no legal rights to enforce, and you never did have them.
And why should this occasion more anger on your part than would be appropriate for a host of other unauthorized items on this site?
~ The "MSCL" show logo, once again.
~ The episode transcripts use the property of a.k.a productions.
~ The individual and scene stills are not used solely for publicity or review purposes.
~ The fan fiction is even more an appropriation of trademarks (the characters created and owned by a.k.a productions) than your covers.
~ The audio and video items, those should be obvious.
~ Even "Breathless" is copied from elsewhere.
Almost the only item that escapes any such taint, in fact, is Bill Blais's "Angela's World." He wrote and authorized his commentary/review work specifically for Joyner's abortive "MSCL" book, and then published it here.
Does any of this, realistically, risk litigation? Probably not. If Bedford Falls, et al., haven't complained by now about such infringements -- all of them, as with your covers, of nearly nil commercial value -- they very likely never will. If "My So-Called Gothic Life" (most of which I gathered for the fan fiction section from elsewhere) isn't enough of a literally bloody parody to outrage them, nothing is.
What this means is that, although you have every reason to be pissed at others' bad manners in distributing these covers, you're still being unrealistic about it. "MSCL" material has been duped and distributed since before the show's original run ended. I obtained two such fan compilations in 1995 on CD-ROM, one from the U.S., one from Germany. Nearly every facet, whether images, sounds, or words, has been shared ad infinitum among the "MSCL" fan network.
With all of that, you're the only one brazen enough to make a copyright claim about your own unauthorized -- though entirely benign -- use of these materials. And to ask that others report violations of conditions, for use of these covers, that you had no legal right to insist upon in the first place.
You have every right to decide to not continue this project. What makes no sense is to pretend that the related matters of intellectual property don't even exist.
It would be more seemly to simply be glad that Zwick, Herskovitz, and the others don't choose (for now) to make a big deal about your infringements, or about a host of others on this site and elsewhere. And to not act as if you believe that this material, despite your rearrangement and redesign, is in any sense your legal property.
Well, somebody had to say it at least once.
They aren't, in any legal sense, your property. You used others' work without authorization, and if copyrights and trademarks mean anything, they would not allow your including any of these items:
~ Images owned by Bedford Falls, ABC, and professional photographers. The only release for general use of these items involved their use for publicity for the original series.
~ BMG's cover descriptions.
~ The "MSCL" show logo, a trademark of a.k.a productions.
~ Corporate trademarks of BMG and AIX Media.
~ Even the "DVD" logo is a trademark, held by the DVD manufacturers' standards organization in Japan (Digital Versatile Disc, FLLC).
And is this exempted under "fair use"? No, it isn't, from everything I can see in quite plainly stated law. You're using these materials to make a new creation of your own design. The commercial impact is negligible, so a damage claim wouldn't get very far, but it's still infringement -- especially for the text descriptions, used in full, and for the trademarks.
And many such matters have still been litigated, if only to maintain the holders' claims on such property. Especially for trademarks, where no "fair use" exemptions exist.
With all of this being true, what is the point of being so bothered about something that was inevitable, the posting or offering of such materials elsewhere? You have no legal rights to enforce, and you never did have them.
And why should this occasion more anger on your part than would be appropriate for a host of other unauthorized items on this site?
~ The "MSCL" show logo, once again.
~ The episode transcripts use the property of a.k.a productions.
~ The individual and scene stills are not used solely for publicity or review purposes.
~ The fan fiction is even more an appropriation of trademarks (the characters created and owned by a.k.a productions) than your covers.
~ The audio and video items, those should be obvious.
~ Even "Breathless" is copied from elsewhere.
Almost the only item that escapes any such taint, in fact, is Bill Blais's "Angela's World." He wrote and authorized his commentary/review work specifically for Joyner's abortive "MSCL" book, and then published it here.
Does any of this, realistically, risk litigation? Probably not. If Bedford Falls, et al., haven't complained by now about such infringements -- all of them, as with your covers, of nearly nil commercial value -- they very likely never will. If "My So-Called Gothic Life" (most of which I gathered for the fan fiction section from elsewhere) isn't enough of a literally bloody parody to outrage them, nothing is.
What this means is that, although you have every reason to be pissed at others' bad manners in distributing these covers, you're still being unrealistic about it. "MSCL" material has been duped and distributed since before the show's original run ended. I obtained two such fan compilations in 1995 on CD-ROM, one from the U.S., one from Germany. Nearly every facet, whether images, sounds, or words, has been shared ad infinitum among the "MSCL" fan network.
With all of that, you're the only one brazen enough to make a copyright claim about your own unauthorized -- though entirely benign -- use of these materials. And to ask that others report violations of conditions, for use of these covers, that you had no legal right to insist upon in the first place.
You have every right to decide to not continue this project. What makes no sense is to pretend that the related matters of intellectual property don't even exist.
It would be more seemly to simply be glad that Zwick, Herskovitz, and the others don't choose (for now) to make a big deal about your infringements, or about a host of others on this site and elsewhere. And to not act as if you believe that this material, despite your rearrangement and redesign, is in any sense your legal property.
Well, somebody had to say it at least once.